Learning Experience

The short story is that we intended to be in Charleston tonight visiting Uncle Isaac and Aunt Erin, but we were thwarted by a late start and road construction. It took us a bit longer than we expected to pack the van, but we still would have been okay except for the horrible stretch of South Carolina road just past the border. There was an electronic sign that said something about "expect one hour delay", but I wasn't sure as we went by whether the construction was on the main road or the exit. You would think that if it were the main road, they'd have more than one warning sign. But you would be wrong. Oh man. It took us an hour and a half to go the ten miles to the next exit, and the babies were screaming for about 50 minutes of that. This was exactly as much fun as it sounds. (I can't complain about car seats for safety, but oh, life would have been a lot better for those 50 minutes if I'd been able to pick them up. That little Matthew can throw one heck of a fit -- red face, top of his lungs -- and it turns out he has a lot of endurance as well.)

We still would have had a couple of hours to go to get to Charleston, so Auntie Erin found us a pet-friendly hotel just past the construction. As much fun as it would have been to see them tonight, it was definitely the right decision. We were so happy to get off the road that this generic hotel room seemed like heaven!

(Note to the Scott House gang: there is even a Waffle House just across the way! I doubt we'll brave it with the little ones, though.)

The babies had eventually fallen asleep, and once we got inside the hotel, they were in perfectly good spirits again (in Matthew's case, after he'd eaten). So, they did not appear to be scarred by the experience!

The kiddos did make their first stop at South of the Border, but it was too cold for any baby-neon or baby-Pedro photo opportunities.

We also learned some valuable lessons about what to pack where (note: more burp cloths in easily accessible locations.)